DOCSLIB.ORG

Aesthetic Separation and the Reflection of Life in Art

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Aesthetic Separation and the Reflection of Life in Art Aesthetic Separation and the Reflection of Life in Art Robert Waters Concepción Elorza Ibañez de Gauna Department of Art and Technology University of the Basque Country September 2019. (cc)2019 ROBERT JAMES WATERS (cc by-nc 4.0) 2 Published by Reprografía at the University of the Basque Country in Leioa, Bizkaia, Spain. Citation Style: Turabian / Chicago, Font: Times New Roman. Pages: 217, Word Count: 125 505. Cover image: Robert Waters, The Essential Elements of Aesthetic Experience, 2019, digitally manipulated paper collage (detail), 29.7 x 21 cm. © Robert Waters 2019 www.robertwaters.ca 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS ADMINISTATIVE DOCUMENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT………………………………………..…………………..…………………...p. 7 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION TO AESTHETIC SEPARATION…………………..p. 9 1.1. Introduction to Introduction to Aesthetic Separation 1.2. Thesis Topic and Intentions 1.3. Literature Review 1.4. Terms and Scope of the Thesis Topic 1.5. Thesis Positioning and Literature Evaluation 1.6. Importance and Contribution of the Thesis 1.7. Epistemological and Ontological Position 1.8. Research Questions 1.9. Hypothesis 1.10. Thesis Limitations 1.11. Methodology 1.12. Main Findings 1.13. Thesis Layout 1.14. Acknowledgements CHAPTER 2. LIFE / CONTEXT………………………………………………………..p. 31 2.1. Introduction to Life / Context 2.2. Autopoiesis 2.2.1. Introduction to Autopoiesis 2.2.2. Two Laws of Autopoiesis 2.2.3. Two Conditions of Autopoiesis 2.2.4. Molecular and Molar Domains 2.2.5. Cognition 2.2.6. Observation 2.2.7. Perspective & Difference 2.2.8. Lack, Desire & Intentionality 2.2.9. The Conatus 2.2.10. Conclusion to Autopoiesis 2.3. Autopoieitic & Aesthetic Operation 2.3.1. Introduction to Autopoieitic & Aesthetic Operation 2.3.2. Transformation 2.3.3. Organization 2.3.4. Context 2.3.5. Observation 2.3.6. Time 2.3.7. Difference 2.3.8. Lack 2.3.9. Coordination 2.3.10. Conclusion to Autopoieitic & Aesthetic Operation 2.4. Conclusion to Life / Context CHAPTER 3. THOUGHT / SELF……………………………………………………..p. 123 3.1. Introduction to Thought / Self 4 3.2. The Self 3.2.1. Introduction to The Self 3.2.2. Parallelism 3.2.3. Thought 3.2.4. Ipseity 3.2.5. Conclusion to The Self 3.3. Perception and Experience 3.3.1. Introduction to Perception and Experience 3.3.2. Perception 3.3.3. Enaction 3.3.4. Experience 3.3.5. Conclusion to Perception and Experience 3.4. Consciousness 3.4.1. Introduction to Consciousness 3.4.2. Consciousness 3.4.3. Umwelt 3.4.4. The Open 3.4.5. Conclusion to Consciousness 3.5. Conclusion to Thought / Self CHAPTER 4. HUMAN BEINGS / INTENTION……………………………………..p. 163 4.1. Introduction to Human Beings / Intention 4.2. Language 4.2.1. Introduction to Language 4.2.2. Speech 4.2.2.1. To Name 4.2.2.2. To Respond 4.2.3. Subjects 4.2.3.1. The Bio-political Subject 4.2.3.2. The Legal Subject 4.2.3.2. Subject of the Signifier 4.2.4. Writing 4.2.4.1. Mute Speech 4.2.4.2. Mark-Making 4.2.5. Conclusion to Language 4.3. Technology 4.2.1. Introduction to Technology 4.2.2. Reorganization 4.2.3. Progression 4.2.4. Function 4.2.5. Conclusion to Technology 4.4. Conclusion to Human Beings / Intention CHAPTER 5. ARTWORKS / ART…………………………………………………….p. 253 5.1. Introduction to Artworks / Art 5.2. The Parergon 5.2.1. Introduction to The Parergon 5.2.2. Summary – The Critique of Judgement, Analytic of the Beautiful 5.2.3. Description – The Parergon 5.2.4. Order 5 5.2.5. Position 5.2.6. Form 5.2.7. Conclusion to The Parergon 5.3. ‘The Fragment’ 5.3.1. Introduction to ‘The Fragment’ 5.3.2. Description – ‘The Fragment’ 5.3.3. Autonomy 5.3.4. Contemporary / Postconceptual Art 5.3.5. Series & Projects 5.3.6. Conclusion to ‘The Fragment’ 5.4. Conclusion to Artworks / Art CHAPTER 6. PRACTICAL RESEARCH …………………………………………….p. 319 6.1. Introduction to Practical Research 6.2. Changing Matter, Changing Minds 6.2.1. The Transformative Potential of Art 6.2.2. Uncover RECOVER 6.2.3. Artworks and Politics 6.3. Cover Your Tracks 6.3.1. Introduction to Cover Your Tracks 6.3.2. Project Description 6.3.2.1. Physical and Ideological Summary 6.3.2.2. Formal Description 6.3.2.3. Experiential Description 6.3.3. Theoretical Contextualization 6.3.3.1. Life / Context 6.3.3.2. Thought / Self 6.3.3.3. Human Beings / Intention 6.3.3.4. Artworks / Art 6.3.4. Conclusion to Cover Your Tracks 6.4. Evaluation of Practical Research 6.5. Conclusion to Practical Research CHAPTER 7. CONCLUSIONS…………………..…………………..………………...p. 373 7.1. Discussion 7.1.1. Key Findings 7.1.2. Interpretations 7.1.3. Implications 7.2. Conclusions 7.2.1. Answers to the Main Research Questions…………………………………p. 378 7.2.2. Recommendations for Future Research 7.2.3. New Contribution of Knowledge APPENDIX 1. Resumen en castellano (Thesis Summary in Spanish)….…...…………..p. 399 APPENDIX 2. Timeline of Referenced Periods and Source Material…………….……..p. 408 APPENDIX 3. Aesthetic Separation Collage………………..…………………………..p. 410 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………..…………………..…………………..…………...p. 411 6 7 ABSTRACT1 – Aesthetic Separation and the Reflection of Life in Art This thesis aims to define the practice of art, which is understood as the creation and appreciation of artworks, in terms of separation. It further attempts to determine how the concept of separation can be used to relate biological and cognitive aspects of human life with the aesthetic experience and understanding of artworks. It accomplishes this by establishing correlations between biological and artistic functionality, while showing how separation limits a purely biological conception of artistic practice. The theoretical research focuses on important aesthetic theories of the past two centuries, and recent studies into human cognition. The practical research incorporates two postconceptual social art projects that implicate the theoretical research. The results demonstrate two principal separations that define artworks and people in relation to tradition and society respectively. The first involves an internal division of object and subject, or material and form. The second distinguishes internal from external, integral from relational, or the individual from the group. The oppositions that are generated by these separations play vital roles in the reflexive identification of self—the foundation of aesthetic theory—and the recognition of human products as artworks. Nonetheless, this thesis finds that the distinct sources of internal and external meaning during aesthetic experience impede a direct correlation between artistic cause and biological effect, and vice versa. Artworks do reflect human life, but their capacity to produce meaning is influenced by social and conceptual relations that escape biological determinism. The practice of art distinguishes its autonomy and tradition on its own terms. Keywords: aesthetics; art; artwork; biology; cognition; life; postconceptual; separation; tradition. 1 Ve a APÉNDICE 1 en página 399 para el RESUMEN en castellano. 8 “Separation is the Alpha and Omega of the Spectacle.” – Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle, Thesis 25. 9 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. Introduction to the Introduction This thesis employs the concept of separation to determine how the practice of art relates to biological and philosophical conceptions of life. It explores the observation and function of separation in both artworks and people through an exploration of autopoietic theory, human cognition and aesthetic experience. It expands upon Jacques Rancière’s conception of ‘aesthetic separation,’ which involves two distinct divisions that consider artworks in relation to sensory interaction leading to signification, and cultural tradition in relation to social transformation. Artworks are thus contemplated in my research in terms of artistic practice—the creation and appreciation of art—and in relation to collective systems of cultural communication and preservation. This thesis explores the practice of art from many angles, providing a holistic approach to understanding the creation of artworks and their reception through aesthetic experience at the beginning of the twenty-first century. In order to better understand the connection between art and life, the practice of art is considered in terms of a systems- theoretical approach to biological operation, and a cognitive embodiment approach of human thought. To better understand the relationship between singular artworks and the general concept of art—as well as the social tradition through which art exists—the theory of art is considered in relation to its ontological and art historical roots. For my practical research, the ideas encountered in the scientific and philosophical research are integrated into an social artwork that explores how context influences artistic significance, and how spectators participate to help create artworks. My research questions the procedure of identifying contemporary artworks given that they are unlimited in terms of their material composition and subject matter, and increasingly 10 moving into non-art territories. My belief is that artworks are distinguished from non-natural materials and non-art products based on the observation of their compositions and contextual states, which must incorporate some artistic convention that will distinguish them as art. This research also questions the ways that artworks affect observers, and how the practice of art can have a political effect. This relates to Rancière’s concept of aesthetic separation, which he uses to explore the potential and limits of the political efficacy of aesthetic experience. This thesis finds that the concept of separation is a valuable way to appreciate the practice of art and relate it to human life. Our biological state of being separated in terms of physiological lack and psychological ipseity can be recognized as an impetus for the acts of communication and connection that artistic practice implies. The observational act of distinction, which is required during aesthetic experience, is also an act of separation in which the transformations inherent in artistic composition are internalized and understood in relation to preconceptions of the concept and tradition of art.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Knowledge, Imagination, and Stories in the Aesthetic Experience of Forests
    Zlom1_2018_Sestava 1 23.3.18 11:39 Stránka 3 Ken Wilder KNOWLEDGE, IMAGINATION, AND STORIES IN THE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE OF FORESTS JUKKA MIKKONEN A key dispute in environmental aesthetics concerns the role of scientific knowledge in our aesthetic appreciation of the natural environment. In this article, I will explore this debate by focusing on the aesthetic experience of forests. I intend to question reductive forms of the scientific approach and support the role of imagination and stories in nature appreciation. I. INTRODUCTION There has long been a debate in environmental aesthetics about the guiding principles of the aesthetic appreciation of nature. According to the ‘scientific approach’, supported by philosophers like Allen Carlson, Holmes Rolston III, Marcia Muelder Eaton, Robert S. Fudge, Patricia Matthews, and Glenn Parsons, the aesthetic appreciation of nature ought to be based on our scientific knowledge of nature, such as our knowledge of natural history. In turn, philosophers who have argued for ‘non-scientific approaches’, like Ronald Hepburn, Arnold Berleant, Stan Godlovitch, Noël Carroll, and Emily Brady, have maintained that the aesthetic interpretation and evaluation of nature is essentially an imaginative, emotional, or bodily activity. In this paper I shall explore the debate by focusing on the aesthetic experience of forests. The distinctive experience of a forest, together with the mythological and cultural meanings of woodlands and trees, provides an intriguing opportunity to examine the relationship between the essential and the accidental, or the global and the local, in philosophical aesthetics. It is an opportunity to explore what we look at when we look at nature. Indeed, trees, for instance, have a vast amount of symbolic value.
    [Show full text]
  • Summary of the Book That Inspired the Work
    Summary of the book that inspired the work WORLD LIGHT – LIFE AND DEATH OF AN ARTIST by Ragnar Kjartansson Book One – The Revelation of the Deity Ólafur’s life is overshadowed by misfortune. Unloved and abandoned by the person who charged him with the burden of living a pitiful Book 4 Book 1 existence, as a young child, he longs for an escape from this painfully ugly isolation, which he endures on a farm in rural Iceland. Suffering from vague maladies, abused by his adoptive family in whose eyes he is nothing but ignorant, lazy and useless, he turns his entire being towards the deity of nature. What is more fulfilling then taking in the blue sky above? More exhilarating then watching the sun go down behind the glacier? Immersed in the greatness of God’s revelations, Book 3 Book 2 Ólafur’s soul enters a safe place, a place of joy that makes him forget the harshness of the world, and eventually himself. Love and reverence, glory and radiance in an intimate understanding of the higher realm spontaneously burst into his tragic World Light, was written in 1937-40 and published in circumstances. In his longing for beauty and four separate tomes at the height of the European salvation, he spends his time reading and writing: tragedy of WWII by the fervent Communist Halldór “Often the boy was overwhelmed by an Laxness. Paradoxically perhaps, it is not as much a uncontrollable yearning to write down in a realist drama championing social and political justice, hundred books everything he saw, despite what as are some of his other books.
    [Show full text]
  • STEM Subjects Face the Haptic Generation: the Ischolar Tesis
    STEM Subjects Face the Haptic Generation: The iScholar Tesis doctoral Nuria Llobregat Gómez Director Dr. D. Luis Manuel Sánchez Ruiz Valencia, noviembre 2019 A mi Madre, a mi Padre (†), a mis Yayos (†), y a mi Hija, sin cuya existencia esto no hubiese podido suceder. Contents Abstract. English Version Resumen. Spanish Version Resum. Valencian Version Acknowledgements Introduction_____________________________________________________________________ 7 Outsight ____________________________________________________________________________________ 13 Insight ______________________________________________________________________________________14 Statement of the Research Questions __________________________________________________________ 15 Dissertation Structure ________________________________________________________________________16 SECTION A. State of the Art. The Drivers ____________________________________________ 19 Chapter 1: Haptic Device Irruption 1.1 Science or Fiction? Some Historical Facts ______________________________________________ 25 1.2 The Irruptive Perspective ___________________________________________________________ 29 1.2.1 i_Learn & i_Different ____________________________________________________________________ 29 1.2.2 Corporate Discourse and Education ________________________________________________________ 31 1.2.3 Size & Portability Impact _________________________________________________________________ 33 First Devices _____________________________________________________________________________ 33 Pro Models
    [Show full text]
  • Computational Media Aesthetics for Media
    COMPUTATIONAL MEDIA AESTHETICS FOR MEDIA SYNTHESIS XIANG YANGYANG (B.Sci., Fudan Univ.) A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY NUS GRADUATE SCHOOL FOR INTEGRATIVE SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 2013 ii DECLARATION I hereby declare that this thesis is my original work and it has been written by me in its entirety. I have duly acknowledged all the sources of information which have been used in the thesis. This thesis has also not been submitted for any degree in any university previously. XIANG YANGYANG January 2014 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor Profes- sor Mohan Kankanhalli for his continuous support during my Ph.D study. His patience, enthusiasm, immense knowledge and guidance helped me throughout the research and writing of this thesis. I would like to thank my Thesis Advisory Committee members: Prof. Chua Tat-Seng, and Dr. Tan Ping for their insightful com- ments and questions. I also want to thank all the team members of the Multimedia Analysis and Synthesis Laboratory, without whom the thesis would not have been possible at all. Last but not the least, I would like to express my appreciation to my family. They have spiritually supported and encouraged me through the whole process. iv ABSTRACT Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy and is closely related to the nature of art. It is common to think of aesthetics as a systematic study of beauty, and one of its major concerns is the evaluation of beauty and ugliness. Applied media aesthetics deals with basic media elements, and aims to constitute formative evaluations as well as help create media products.
    [Show full text]
  • Aftershock: the Ethics of Contemporary Transgressive
    HORRORSHOW 5 The Transvaluation of Morality in the Work of Damien Hirst I don’t want to talk about Damien. Tracey Emin1 With these words Tracey Emin deprived the art world of her estimation of her nearest contemporary and perhaps the most notorious artist associated with the young British art phenomenon. Frustrating her interviewer’s attempt to discuss Damien Hirst is of course entirely Emin’s prerogative; why should she be under any obligation to discuss the work of a rival artist in interview? Given the theme of this book, however, no such discursive dispensation can be entertained. Why Damien Hirst? What exactly is problematic about Hirst’s art? It is time to talk about Damien. An early installation When Logics Die (1991) provides a useful starting point for identifying the features of the Hirstean aesthetic. High-definition, post- mortem forensic photographs of a suicide victim, a road accident fatality and a head blown out by a point-blank shotgun discharge are mounted on aluminium above a clinical bench strewn with medical paraphernalia and biohazard material. Speaking to Gordon Burn in 1992, the artist explained that what intrigued him about these images was the incongruity they involve: an obscene content yet amenable to disinterested contemplation in the aesthetic mode as a ‘beautiful’ abstract form. ‘I think that’s what the interest is in. Not in actual corpses. I mean, they’re completely delicious, desirable images of completely undesirable, unacceptable things. They’re like cookery books.’2 Now remember what he’s talking about here. Sustained, speculative and clinically detached, Hirst’s preoccupation with the stigmata of decomposition, disease and mortal suffering may be considered to violate instinctive taboos forbidding pleasurable engagement with the spectacle of death.
    [Show full text]
  • The Interpretive Act Between Text and Reader
    IJAPS, Vol. 6, No. 1 (January 2010) INTERPRETATION: THE INFINITE CONTROVERSY * Sabbar S. Sultan Al Isra, University, Amman, Jordan e-mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT The following is an attempt to view and perceive the problematic act of interpretation, including its nature, its endless controversies, its horizons and its limitations. The paper is comprised of two sections. The first is an introduction covering the various aspects of the interpretive act. It also deals with the vast potentialities opened up by interpretation. The second section shows some of the limitations of interpretation, as seen in the different interpretations of Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Shakespeare's Hamlet. The approach used throughout is ambivalent in that it stresses the merits and drawbacks of interpretation in reading and understanding texts. Keywords: controversy, right interpretation, perspective INTRODUCTION One of the salient topics much discussed in contemporary literary theory is the concept of 'interpretation'. At first glance, this may seem peculiar if we recall that the critical processes comprising the analysis, appreciation, and study of literature are more or less 'interpretive' acts, essentially concerned with the problem of perceiving latent meanings or dissecting textual strategies in pursuit of what is not stated. However, as the following pages will show, this axiomatic activity has been recently problematised in such a way that that there is a dire need to sort things out and judge for ourselves * Sabbar S. Sultan is associate professor of modern English literature at Al Isra University, Amman, Jordan. His latest publications include "The Critical vs. the Industrial in David Lodge's Nice Work", International Journal of Arabic and English Studies, Lebanon, (Oct., 2009) (forthcoming); "The Artist- Community Relationship in Hawthorne's Story 'The Artist of the Beautiful'," Journal of the Society of Faculties of Arts in the Arab World, University of Yarmouk, Irbid, Jordan (Feb.
    [Show full text]
  • The Explosion of Modernism Transcript
    The Explosion of Modernism Transcript Date: Wednesday, 19 October 2011 - 1:00PM Location: Museum of London 19 October 2011 Christian Faith and Modern Art The Explosion of Modernism The Rt Revd Lord Harries Prologue Christian art once provided a shared “symbolic order” (Peter Fuller). Shared narratives and recognised images through which the deeper meaning of life could be explored. This has gone. “The disassociation between art and faith is not written in stone but is not easy to overcome”. Formidable obstacles: of style-how to avoid pastiche, images that have gone stale-overwhelming plurality of styles, so artist has to choose-forced to choose a private language, and so lose some of the audience. [1] David Jones, particularly aware of this. Human beings are essentially sign makers. Most obviously we give someone a bunch of flowers or a kiss as a sign. So what are works of art a sign of? Here we come across the great crisis with which Jones wrestled both in his writing and his art. For he believed, and he said this view was shared by his contemporaries in the 1930’s, that the 19th century experienced what he called “The Break”.[2] By this he meant two things. First, the dominant cultural and religious ideology that had unified Europe for more than a 1000 years no longer existed. All that was left were fragmentary individual visions. Secondly, the world is now dominated by technology, so that the arts seem to be marginalised. They are no use in such a society, and their previous role as signs no longer has any widespread public resonance.
    [Show full text]
  • Artistic Integrity, Public Policy and Copyright: Colorization Reduced To
    Artistic Integrity, Public Policy and Copyright: Colorization Reduced to Black and White [A]rt is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen.' I. INTRODucTION Art reflects society. Each person in modern society-a society that prides itself on freedom of expression-interprets differently the beauty in art. Thus, when a musician composes a popular tune, a poet drafts a new verse, or a painter touches her 2 brush to canvas, their creations are subject to criticism, debate, and often ridicule. Some artists choose faster tempos, shorter sentences, brighter pastels; others choose 3 melodic tunes, complex clauses, or no color at all. These are all artistic choices. They characterize both the work and the artist himself.4 Despite opposing viewpoints, the art world respects the artistic intent of the work, condemning any modification 5 based upon society's standards or an individual's preference. Quite often technology discovers ways we can "improve" 6 the products of art. Synthesizers electronically alter instrumental sounds, springfloors lift the dancer higher and farther, and word processors cut an editor's work in half. These advances facilitate the artist's ability to create or perform; 7 they aid the artist. However, with the recent evolution of colorization, 8 technology has infringed upon the artist's creative intent and control.9 Now, computers can paint color into black and white motion pictures. This advance differs significantly from the former examples. Where these other advances may bolster or facilitate an artist's intent, the colorization process alters black and white films that were intended to remain colorless.
    [Show full text]
  • Why Hollywood Isn't As Liberal As We Think and Why It Matters
    Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont CMC Senior Theses CMC Student Scholarship 2019 Why Hollywood Isn't As Liberal As We Think nda Why It Matters Amanda Daily Claremont McKenna College Recommended Citation Daily, Amanda, "Why Hollywood Isn't As Liberal As We Think nda Why It Matters" (2019). CMC Senior Theses. 2230. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/2230 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you by Scholarship@Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in this collection by an authorized administrator. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 1 Claremont McKenna College Why Hollywood Isn’t As Liberal As We Think And Why It Matters Submitted to Professor Jon Shields by Amanda Daily for Senior Thesis Fall 2018 and Spring 2019 April 29, 2019 2 3 Abstract Hollywood has long had a reputation as a liberal institution. Especially in 2019, it is viewed as a highly polarized sector of society sometimes hostile to those on the right side of the aisle. But just because the majority of those who work in Hollywood are liberal, that doesn’t necessarily mean our entertainment follows suit. I argue in my thesis that entertainment in Hollywood is far less partisan than people think it is and moreover, that our entertainment represents plenty of conservative themes and ideas. In doing so, I look at a combination of markets and artistic demands that restrain the politics of those in the entertainment industry and even create space for more conservative productions. Although normally art and markets are thought to be in tension with one another, in this case, they conspire to make our entertainment less one-sided politically.
    [Show full text]
  • ED388602.Pdf
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 388 602 SO 025 569 AUTHOR Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly; Robinson, Rick E. TITLE The Art of Seeing: An Interpretation of the Aesthetic Encounter. INSTITUTION Getty Center for Education in the Atts, Los Angeles, CA.; J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, CA. REPORT NO ISBN-0-89236-156-5 PUB DATE 90 NOTE 224p. AVAILABLE FROMGetty Center for Education in the Arts, 401 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 950, Santa Monica, CA 90401. PUB TYPE Books (010) Reports Research/Technical (143) Tests/Evaluation Instruments (160) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC09 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Aesthetic Education; *Aesthetic Values; Art; *Art Appreciation; Art Criticism; Audience Response; *Critical Viewing; Higher Education; Museums; Perception; Professional Education; Sensory Experience; Skill Analysis; Visual Arts; *Visual Literacy; Visual Stimuli ABSTRACT This study attempts to gain information concerning the receptive, as opposed to the creative, aesthetic experience by talking to museum professionals who spend their working lives identifying, appraising, and explicating works of art. The study is based on an underlying assumption that rules and practices for looking at art exist and must be mastered if success is to ensue. The anthropological research approach uses semi-structured interviews and subjects the responses to systematic analysis. Major conclusions emphasize the unity and diversity of the aesthetic experience. The structure of the aesthetic experience is found to be an intense involvement of attention in response to a visual stimulus, for no other reason than to sustain the interaction. The experiential consequences of such a deep and autotelic :lvolvement are an intense enjoy,lent characterized by feelings of personal wholeness, a sense of discovery, and a sense of human connectedness.
    [Show full text]
  • Aesthetic Interpretation and the Claim to Community in Cavell
    CONVERSATIONS 5 Seeing Selves and Imagining Others: Aesthetic Interpretation and the Claim to Community in Cavell JON NAJARIAN Politics is aesthetic in principle. JACQUES RANCIÈRE From his early childhood, Stanley Cavell learned to tread carefully the intervening space between twin pillars: of aesthetic sensibility on the one hand, and political be- longing on the other. Early in his memoir Little Did I Know, Cavell establishes a set of differences between his mother and father that far exceed both gender and age (his father was ten years older than his mother), as he notes the starkly contrasting dis- pensations of their respective families: The artistic temperament of my mother’s family, the Segals, left them on the whole, with the exception of my mother and her baby brother, Mendel, doubt- fully suited to an orderly, successful existence in the new world; the orthodox, religious sensibility of my father’s family, the Goldsteins, produced a second generation—some twenty-two first cousins of mine—whose solidarity and se- verity of expectation produced successful dentists, lawyers, and doctors, pillars of the Jewish community, and almost without exception attaining local, some of them national, some even a certain international, prominence.1 From his mother’s family, Cavell would inherit the musical sensibility that, had he not ventured into the world of academic philosophy, might have led him towards a career as a musician or in music. In his father’s family Cavell observes a religious belonging that, in the decades in which Cavell is raised, becomes morally inseparable from politi- $1. Cavell, Little Did I Know: Excerpts from Memory (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010), 3.
    [Show full text]
  • Modernizing George Eliot: the Writer As Artist, Intellectual, Proto- Modernist, Cultural Critic
    Newton, K.M. "Introduction." Modernizing George Eliot: The Writer as Artist, Intellectual, Proto- Modernist, Cultural Critic. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2010. 1–6. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 30 Sep. 2021. <http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781849665155.0005>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 30 September 2021, 22:54 UTC. Copyright © K.M. Newton 2011. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. Introduction his study will argue that George Eliot stands virtually alone among British Twriters since Milton in aspiring not only to be a literary artist at the highest level but also to be an intellectual of the fi rst rank who could engage through the medium of literature with the most signifi cant cultural, ethical and political issues of her time. Most of these issues, such as Darwinism, colonialism and racism, the problem of moral choice in the absence of any metaphysical grounding for it, still play an important role in contemporary debates in the twenty-fi rst century, which makes Eliot perhaps the most signifi cant Victorian writer at the present time. Her primary aim was to embody her intellectual interests and concerns within her novels without compromising artistic integrity, thus unifying intellectual thought and art. I hope to show that this ambition was to a considerable degree successfully realized, largely through the adoption of innovatory literary methods that anticipate those developed later by modernist writers. Although Eliot’s canonic status has been securely established since at least the middle of the twentieth century – and the numerous books and articles that continue to be written about her work indicate that academic interest in it shows no sign of diminishing – more than most canonic writers she has been subject to a wide range of critical questioning.
    [Show full text]